Thursday, December 31, 2015

Here we are, on the last day of the year, and now I will try to wrote down a small annual "review" about my internet radio show called 'Prog & Roll'.
(Before anything else, I think I should say that Prog & Roll is an online radio show, that comes 'on air' on Sunday nights, and it is presented by GFreedom Team, which is actually me & my wife Nihal, who is responsible for the English part of the show). So, during 2015 we did 40 shows, during which we played almost 740 songs by 330 different bands, from many music genres and sub-categories. (Such as: Classic Rock, Progressive Rock, Heavy Metal, Hard Rock, Progressive Metal, Psychedelia, Neo-Prog etc). I am also very pleased to say that during this last year, Prog & Roll became more famous than before, and many new people joined our "company" on the chatbox, from many different countries. (Such as UK, N.Ireland, France, Germany, USA, Canada, Russia, Greece, Turkey, and even Mexico and India). Some of them are listening from time to time, but some others became Prog & Roll's devoted listeners. We also had many musicians as "guests on the chatbox" during this year, and some of them also liked the show and they are "visiting" our chatbox on a rather often basis. One of the biggest and pleasant surprises of this year, was the participation of my wife Nihal, to the new and really good album 'The Fragility of Innocence' recorded by the UK band Salander, on which she does some vocals in a couple of songs. (We met Salander's members through our show, who also became our listeners and friends).
I must say that I'm really pleased with Prog & Roll's performance this year, and I hope that 2016 will be an even better year for our show. Concluding this post, I would like to say a very big 'Thank You' to all those people who are supporting us, and with their love and devotion are giving us the strength to carry on.Prog & Roll will be with you again on the 10st of Januar, for the first show of 2016.Happy New Year everybody!Thank you all very much! :-)

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

I'm really sorry to announce that one of the few remaining true legends of Rock music passed away.Lemmy died yesterday at his home at the age of 70, just two days after learning that he was diagnosed with cancer.Lemmy was a member of Hawkwind in the early '70's, and from 1975 till now, he was the leader of Motorhead. Despite that I never considered myself as a fan of Motorhead, I had a very big respect for him, and I feel really lucky for being able to see him on stage twice.I will conclude this post with the exact words that his bandmates wrote for his death:

“There is no easy way to say this … our mighty, noble
friend Lemmy passed away today after a short battle with an extremely
aggressive cancer. He had learned of the disease on 26 December, and was at
home, sitting in front of his favourite video game from The Rainbow which had
recently made it’s way down the street, with his family.

We cannot begin to express our shock and sadness;
there aren’t words.

“We will say more in the coming days, but for now,
please … play Motörhead loud, play Hawkwind loud, play Lemmy’s music LOUD. Have
a drink or few.

“Share stories.

“Celebrate the LIFE this lovely,
wonderful man celebrated so vibrantly himself.

Monday, December 28, 2015

Hello everybody! :-)As I wrote in the post below, last night we did the last Prog &Roll of 2015, which was completely dedicated to our listeners. Almost the whole playlist was including the songs they asked for, and that's why it was totally mixed up. I dare say that it was a brilliant show, we had lots of fun in the chatbox, and everybody seemed to be in a great mood. We also had a music contest, and the winner was (once more) Florian Decros from France. After his win, we gave him the title of Sir Florian Decros, which he used on the chatbox as well. :-) Because of the many songs requests, the show lasted for almost 15 minutes more, and at the end we finished it, by exchanging wishes with our listeners for the new year.We had a superb atmosphere in the chatbox once more, and that is something I am very proud of. I really believe that one of the advantages of Prog & Roll, is the very friendly and warm atmosphere we have in the chatbox during our shows. It is impossible for someone new to join, and not feel welcome from the first moment. As for the show's playlist, you can see it here:

Saturday, December 26, 2015

Hello all! :-) I'm writing this post in order to inform you about tomorrow's Prog & Roll radio show. As we have been advertising on the radio, tomorrow's show it's going to be a real special one. And that's because this last show's playlist will be exclusively made from our listeners. During our previous shows we have been asking them to send us e-mails, including 3-4 songs of their choice. The main idea was to select 2 songs from each e-mail. and add them to the show's playlist. But finally we received so many e-mails, that made this really impossible. If we wanted to play 2 songs for each person, we should make the show 3 hours or more, and that is just impossible. So, we just picked 1 song from each email unfortunately.
But as you can understand, tomorrow's show will be an extremely interesting one, musically speaking. The playlist is totally mixed up, and it includes really (great) songs, from many different music styles and sub-genres, varying from Progressive Rock up to Heavy Metal, and even music from soundtracks.

So, my recommendation would be not to miss this last show of 2015, because it is going to be a really great one! :-) I will remind you once more, that Prog & Roll begin at 20.00 UK time zone, (21.00 Italy/France, 22.00 Greece/Turkey), and it's always on time! Also have in mind that it is a "live" radio show, and the broadcast is mostly in English, but also in Greek as well. In order to listen, just click on the following link tomorrow, at the time I mentioned above. www.justincaseradio.com
That's all for now, I hope to "see" you online.Thank you! :-)

Monday, December 21, 2015

As I have mentioned in the post below, last night we had Prog & Roll's Christmas Special Show. My opinion is that it was a really great one, and the people seemed to enjoy it a lot. The only problem was that my wife and co-host was very sick, and she tried very hard to be there for the show. And up to a point she did, but after 1.5 hours she just couldn't go on anymore and she left. During the 2 hours of the show, we played many Christmas songs in slightly different versions than the ones you are used to, and furthermore songs that were inspired by Christmas. But that's not all. We had also a birthday AND a wedding announcement! One of our faithful listeners had his birthday yesterday, and that's why he asked for Jethro Tull's song 'Too Old to Rock n Roll, Too Young to Die'. And of course we did play it.
Well, what can I say? We really enjoyed last night's show, we had lots of fun, lots of laughters, and it was a very sweet and warm atmosphere in the chatbox.As for the complete playlist, you can see it here:

Saturday, December 19, 2015

I'm writing this post in order to inform you about tomorrow's special Prog & Roll radio show.
Since tomorrow we will have the last show before Christmas, we thought of making it kind of a special one. So, tomorrow's Prog & Roll will be a "theme" show, and the main theme will be - of course - Christmas.During the 2 hours of the show, we will play many Christmas songs, but in very different versions than the ones you are used to, and also songs that were inspired from Christmas. We have in our playlist songs from many different styles and sub-genres of music, varying from Rock and Soul up to Punk.
We also included songs from various cartoons in order to make the show even more fun. ;-)Don't forget that Prog & Roll is an internet live radio show, and the broadcast is mostly in English, and also Greek.
So, if tomorrow night you are in the mood for a fun Christmas radio show, join us.Prog & Roll begins at 20.00 UK time, and its always on time. :-)You can listen by simply clicking the following link:www.justincaseradio.com
Hope to "see" you there. ;-)
Thank you.

Hello everybody! :-)
As many of you know already, on every Saturday morning I'm posting here this 'Juke Box' post, which is my weekly Top-5 songlist for you.During this week I listened to lots of music once more, and I picked the following songs as the best ones:SYSTEM OF A DOWN: Lonely Day (Mezmerize - 2005)CAMEL: Rajaz (Rajaz - 1999)BIG BIG TRAIN: Hedgerow (English Electric Part.1 - 2012)QUEENSRYCHE: Eyes of a Stranger (Operation: Mindcrime - 1988)MANFRED MANN'S EARTH BAND: The Road to Babylon (The Roaring Silence - 1976)
By clicking on the following links you can listen to the songs in my list.Enjoy the music, and have a wonderful weekend! :-)SYSTEM OF A DOWN: Lonely DayCAMEL: RajazBIG BIG TRAIN: HedgerowQUEENSRYCHE: Eyes of a StrangerMANFRED MANN'S EARTH BAND: The Road to Babylon

the ultimate
Christmas prog album geared toward the major prog fan. Complete with shreddy
guitars as well as soothing fretless bass, vocals on occasion by the
illustrious Mr Morse, and everything in between, this is an album the true fan
will enjoy for years to come.

Totally recommended for the fans of Progressive Rock! If you are into this kind of music, then this album it is a 'must have'!

My Rating: 3.0 out of 5.0 stars.

By clicking on the following link you can listen to the song 'Frankincense' taken from this album.

Monday, December 14, 2015

Last night Prog & Roll radio show was online once more as usual. It was the last "normal" show of the year, since our 2 next shows will be kind of special ones. The one on the 20th will be the 'Christmas Special', and the one after that will be the last show of 2015, and it will be totally dedicated to our audience, and their musical choices. Once more we had many people listening, from many European countries. I'm very glad to see that more people are joining our chatbox, and our company there becomes bigger. As for the playlist, we played songs from many decades, and music genres or sub-categories.We divided the 2-hours show into 4-half hours parts once more, and here you can take a look at the songs that were played:

1st PART:MYSTERY: Last Glass of Wine / DAVID GILMOUR: Faces of
Stone / SUBSIGNAL: The Time out of Joint / SUBTERRANEAN MASQUERADE: Specter.

Friday, December 11, 2015

This is a new BBC Tv Series I discovered
recently, and I watched the whole 1st season into 3 days time. That’s
not so difficult though, because the whole 1st season consists of
only 8 - 45 minutes long – episodes.

The story is
based on the books ‘The Saxon Stories’,
written by Bernard Cornwell, (which
I haven’t read), and tells the story of
Uhtred, who was born as a Saxon, but he was raised as a Dane.

The story starts when the Danes attack the
young boy’s Kingdom of Bebbenburg, and his father Lord Uhtred, gathers an army
in order to face them. Earl Ragnar of the Danes is attacked
by Lord Uhtred and his army, who has no chance of victory, but his bravery earns
the respect of the Viking leader. The battle is lost, and Lord Uhtred dies. The
Danes take his son as a slave, together with another orphan girl, named Brida.
Slowly slowly Ragnar accepts the young boy, and finally he is raising him as if
he was his own son. So, after losing his father, Uhtred now found a new father,
but that’s not so simple. Because,
although he was born Saxon, now he is being raised as a Dane.

All the things
you just read, are just the beginning of a wonderful story, which is deployed
in the 8 episodes of the 1st season of ‘The Lost Kingdom’.

The Last Kingdom is blessed with a talented
group of actors, including some veterans as well, like Ratger Hauer for
example, who plays the Viking Ravn. Also, it was a great surprise to me to see
Matthew Macfadyen as the Lord Uhtred. Sadly these
2 characters won’t last for more than 1 episode, but they helped ground the
series with their presence in this 1st episode. After that, young
Uhtred and Brida take over, as we watch them mature into adulthood.

The Last Kingdom
is the first book in the Saxon Stories, so hopefully with the show’s success we
will get to see more…

I really enjoyed watching this 1st season,
and I’m waiting impatiently for the 2nd one to come out.

Highly
recommended, especially to all those who like Medieval books or films, filled
with battles, swords, bravery and of course love stories.
Because let’s face it, like it or not, every series lately MUST include a few
love stories as well.

My Rating: 8.0 / 10.0 - IMDB’s Rating: 8.6 / 10.0

By clicking on the following link you can watch a trailer for The Last Kingdom.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Hello all!As I wrote in the post below this one, on Sunday's Prog & Roll radio show we did an extended presentation on Clive Nolan's musical 'Alchemy'.
Many people asked if they would have the chance to listen to it
again because they loved it; and because I believe that it was one of the best presentations we ever did, I decided to upload it as a Podcast.
The show was divided into 3 uneven parts, and Alchemy's presentation took place during the 2nd part.

Monday, December 7, 2015

Good morning all! As I mentioned in previous a post in this blog, on last night's Prog & Roll radio show we had the presentation of Clive Nolan's 'Alchemy' prepared. We had also informed Mr. Nolan about this presentation and he agreed to "participate" in our show, as 'guest on the chatbox'. But on Saturday afternoon, we were informed that he would be not able to join the show, due to a personal problem.That was something that made us kind of sad, (because let's face it, it's not easy to have musicians like Clive Nolan in our chatbox often), but we continued with the show as planned. So, last night's Prog & Roll, was all about Rock opera's and musicals. From our behalf, we were preparing this show for almost 10 days now, and I really believe we did an excellent job. As it seemed, everybody was rather impressed (especially with Alchemy's presentation), and had some great time. At the time of the show, we had among our listeners Andy Sears, who plays the role of Lord Henry Jagman, and Magda from Germany, who is - I think - responsible for Mr. Nolan's PR. There was really big amount of people that were listening, and most of them stayed until the last song, so my guess is that they were enjoying the whole thing.As our listeners know well, we usually divide the show in 4 half-hour parts, but especially for yesterday we changed that. So, we divided the show into 3 uneven parts, and during the middle and longer one we did the presentation of Alcemy.Anyway, let's take a look now to the complete songlist:Part. 1:THE PRETTY THINGS: Defecting Grey / THE KINKS:
She’s Bought a Hat Like Princess Marina / O.S.T ‘HAIR’ : Aquarius / THE WHO:
Teenage Wasteland / O.S.T ‘JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR’: King Herod’s Song.Part 2: 'ALCHEMY':Prologue / Deception / Amelia / Quaternary Plan
/ Ambush / The Tide of Wealth / Amelia Dies / The Ritual / Anzeray Speaks.Part. 3: SAVATAGE:
Strange Reality / TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA: What is Eternal / KAYAK: Goodbye
Pharos / CAAMORA: Overture (from ‘She’).'Epic' song: AYREON: Isis & Osiris. On behalf of GFreedom Team, I would like to say a very big 'Thank You' to all those who joined our show last night, and to our faithful listeners who are supporting and advertising our show all the time.Thank you all!

Saturday, December 5, 2015

I'm very glad and proud to announce that during tomorrow's Prog & Roll we are going to have the English musician & composer Clive Nolan, as "guest on the chatbox"!Clive Nolan is one of the most famous and respected musicians in the "modern" Progressive Rock music scene, and he is the leading force behind bands like Arena, Shadowlands and Pendragon.
At this point, I would like to inform you about tomorrow's special Prog & Roll:Tomorrow's show will be a special "theme" show, and the theme will be 'Rock Opera's and Musicals, from the '60's till noawdays'.
So, as you realize from the theme of the show, tomorrow we are going to play songs from Rock opera's and Rock musicals exclusively, famous or not. Further than that, we are going to make an extended presentation to Clive Nolan's wonderful musical 'Alchemy', which was released in 2013. Because of that, we contacted him and asked if he would like to "participate" in our show somehow. And he will! So, tomorrow we will welcome in our chatbox one of the greatest musicians and composers of the last decades. Furthermore, there is a big possibility that together with him, some other musicians/singers who participated in the recordings and the theatrical version of 'Alchemy' will join as well.But there is more! Today, I am going to call him ot his home, in order to have a chat and get to now each other, and together with my wife we are going to take a small interview, parts of which we are going to play on tomorrow's show.
We strarted preparing this show a couple of weeks ago, because we wanted to present something really special to our audience, and now that we know that Clive Nolan will join also, we just can't wait! So, if tomorrow night you are in the mood for some really great music, and also the oportunity to "meet" Clive Nolan, just join Prog & Roll.Our show begins at 20.00 UK time (21.00 Italy/France/Germany), (22.00 Greece/Turkey).The only thing you have to do, is to click the following link at the time I mentioned above.www.justincaseradio.comSee you there! :-)Thank you.

Friday, December 4, 2015

For those who aren't familiar with the band 'Mystery', I
should say that they are a Canadian band, and they have been active since the
mid '80's. The band released its first album in 1992 and break up in 2000.
After a 5 year break, they returned in 2005 with many changes in their line up,
and a different sound. Since then, they released 4 studio albums, with Delusion
Rain being their latest one. Personaly speaking, I discovered 'Mystery' almost 4 years ago,
and I really liked them. Almost immediately, I bought the 2 albums that I could
find at the time, which were 'Beneath the Veil of Winter's Face'
(2007) and 'One Among the Living' (2010). I liked these albums a
lot, and when 'The World is a Game' came out in 2012, I bought it
without a second thought. The same thing happened with 'Delusion Rain'
this year. There was a surprise waiting for me though. The first thing I
realised, was that their very good singer David Benoit, was not in the
band anymore. For health problems I think, he was replaced by Jean Pageau.
That put my mood down a little bit, but that lasted for only a few minutes.
Once I started listening to the album, I realised that the new singer is
equally good, and matches their sound just like their previous one. (But I like
Benoit's voice better).Let's take a closer look at the album now: Well, it consists of 6 songs, and has a total running time of
almost an hour. As you can understand, all songs are kind of long ones. The
shortest one is 'If you see her' (6.10), and the longest one is the
album's epic 'The Willow Tree' (19.30). The latter is definetely the
CD's highlight with the many changes it has in its music and tempo. It starts
as a ballad, then shift to a fast tempo and a long instrumental passage. The
same themes are repeated like the ballad and the acoustic part, so it's like a
back and forth of acoustic and electric moments.Despite the singer's
replacement, the sound of the band remained the same, and that is something
surely pleasing for me. The band retained its mellow, melodic & melancholic
sound, which is kind of their 'trademark' in my opinion. Another thing I should mention, is the excellent production of the
album! The sound is clear and loud with each instrument bursting in the
speakers. As for their 'influences', once more they remind something like a
mix between Pink Floyd and Pallas. Not always of course, but in some specific parts. I totally recommend 'Delusion Rain' to the fans of Neo-Prog (or 'modern
Progressive Rock' if you like), and to all those who can enjoy a well
structured and melodic Rock album.My rating would be: 3.5 out of 5.0 stars.By clicking the following link, you will be able to listen to the
album's opening song.Enjoy! :-)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkMFXY-tZjg

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About Me

I was born in Athens Greece, and still live there with my wife and my son..
I was DJ in many rock bars and medium size clubs for many years,
therefore music is a very important part of my life. Im a motorcycles
fan, and enjoy travel a lot with my motorcycle. Lately me & my wife we are hosting an internet radio show, and I'm having a Blog on the side.Well, that's all for now... :)